I graduated from St. John’s College (“Great Books
Program” – very much Western philosophy, theology, etc.) in Santa Fe in
1968. When I was coming back to visit in the fall of 1969 – driving across
New Mexico – some hitchhikers left a coverless book in the back of my
little camper truck. That turned out to be Three Pillars of Zen, which I
later read.

I was on my way to Berkeley to attend Starr King
School for the (Unitarian-Universalist) Ministry. It wasn’t that I saw
myself as a potential minister, but it seemed like a good program, mixing
social science, pop psychology, and Eastern philosophy and religion. A
course there was labeled an introduction to Hinduism-Buddhism, though I
don’t remember what we actually did in it.

During my year at Starr King I had a weekly
“internship” at Napa State Hospital, after which I started volunteering
full-time on the autistic children’s ward. During that time I also read
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. After a few months I got hired for a 9-month
temporary position on the autistic ward.

I loved the work, it was extremely challenging and
rewarding, but also stressful. One week we had only one day off, the next
week three days off. Sometimes on 3-day weekends I went somewhere “exotic”
in search of rest, relaxation, and inspiration.

A St. John’s friend was a bread baker, and somewhere
I had bought her a copy of the Tassajara Bread Book. Before sending it to
her, I read about Tassajara, and decided I’d like to visit.

One weekend in the summer of 1971 I drove down from
Berkeley (from which I commuted to work at Napa). On the way I picked up a
hitchhiker. But the engine of my truck had a problem and, as we got closer
to Tassajara, it wouldn’t pull the hills, it lacked power. We got out and
hitched a ride with someone else.

The person who picked us up had also already picked
up a hitchhiker, so now there were four of us – and it felt like a regular
pilgrimage train. We got to Tassajara late in the afternoon. Someone at
the gatehouse took our day-use fee and gave us towels for the baths.

I remembered that I had a small boil on my leg, and
asked if that would prevent me from using the baths. The gatehouse
attendant responded enthusiastically, “Oh, a healing!” So I used the
baths.

The four of us had split up, each going our own way,
but we would occasionally cross paths. At some point, someone said, “You
know, we can join them for meditation now if we want to.”

I’d been reading Zen stories and such, but knew
nothing about practice, and felt it would somehow be sacrilegious for me
to attend without knowing how to do it or what it was about. So I didn’t
go in.

Meanwhile it had gotten late into the evening, and
perhaps the driver who had brought us in had already left, or was staying
overnight (I don’t remember). In any case, the fellow I had picked up and
I had no way to get back out, and it was late. We explained to the
gatehouse attendant (not the same person as earlier, I believe), and he
was also understanding. We could sleep in the gatehouse, he said, as long
as we left early so no one would know.

Of course we had no bedding or anything, and I don’t
remember how we managed to sleep, but we did, and caught a ride out with
two women leaving very early the next morning. My truck could run
downhill, and I managed to get back to Berkeley with it.

There I decided to go to the Berkeley Zendo for zazen
instruction, which was held perhaps half an hour before evening zazen one
day per week. Somehow I got the time confused and arrived too late for
instruction, but someone encouraged me to go in anyway.

The zendo was upstairs in the attic of the old
building on Dwight Ave. As I came up the stairs, Mel was sitting facing
me, and nodded me to a seat along the wall towards the far end. I sat down
without noticing much about what other people were doing.

Since I’d missed instruction, I didn’t know that one
should sit up straight, have one’s eyes slightly open, etc. I sat hunched
over with my eyes closed. Eventually my back started to ache so I started
moving my back this way and that, trying to find a comfortable position.

I came the next week for instruction and wondered
what the person next to me must have thought about my behavior the time
before, but of course no one had said anything about it.

I don’t remember if it was the first time I’d sat
(before instruction) or sometime soon thereafter (after instruction), but
early on a “psychic” experience confirmed that I was in the right place. I
had my eyes open – I remember looking a bit off to the right, at a spot
among the rafters that I wasn’t actually seeing – and had a “vision” of
some sort, maybe just a strong feeling, because I don’t recall any actual
visualization – but something very intense happened – I felt transfixed –
and I felt that I was home. It felt like I’d been away from home for 1000
years, but now had found where I belonged.

Postscript

I started
sitting regularly at Berkeley zendo, and also at home. Often when I felt
lost and didn’t know what to do next, I would sit until I felt clear about
the next step in my day. During this time – inspired by my work at Napa –
I was taking pre-medical classes at Grove St. College in Oakland,
intending to apply to medical school with the idea of going into
psychiatry.

In late spring
or early summer of 1973 I started taking pre-med classes at SF State and
moved into an apartment on Page Street just down the hill from City
Center, where I shared a room in an apartment (rented from an elderly
Russian lady) with another Zen student, who had come from the Rochester
zendo and had a brown robe, as that’s what they wear there. During the
summer I shaved my head – just to see what it was like – first selling my
(quite long) hair to a wig-maker.

I didn’t have
a sitting robe so when, a few months later, my roommate decided to leave,
he gave me his brown one, and I started wearing it to zazen. Perhaps
Baker-roshi wasn’t around so much at that time, or I hadn’t seen him, or
hadn’t thought about it, but after awhile I realized that he and I were
the only ones wearing brown robes. But it didn’t seem to be a problem for
anyone. I moved into City Center in September.

In May 1974 –
although I was on a waiting list for at least one medical school – I
decided to go to Tassajara instead. Since black robes were provided there,
I sent the brown one back to the fellow who had given it to me.

I was a cabin
cleaner during the summer at Tassajara. Feeling naturally somewhat
mechanical – and having taken a plumbing merit badge in Boy Scouts – I
noticed and fixed several small plumbing problems, and then was appointed
plumber during the two following practice periods.

After that (in
May 1975) I returned to Alaska because my mother was feeling distressed as
my father hadn’t filed their income taxes in several years because of a
complicated record-keeping problem, and I thought I could help (which
eventually I did, after first working as a professional tax preparer for a
tax season).

But by then
I’d gotten involved with a woman whom I then helped start a daycare center
which I ran for two years (she dropped out before we even opened), and I
never got back to living at Zen Center, though I returned to Tassajara as
a summer work-student for short periods a few times, and once for a month
at Green Gulch as well.

Rick Wicks

Göteborg,
Sverige (Sweden)

June 2012

What is my (Zen) practice now?

What is my (Zen) practice now?

When I decided not to return to Tassajara in the fall
of 1975 (see “How I came to Zen practice”) – but instead to remain in
Alaska – I put up flyers around Anchorage and found two other young men
interested in Zen and wanting to share a residence and create a practice
place. However, as I got increasingly involved with the woman with whom I
was starting a daycare center, my practice became quite irregular, because
I often wasn’t home, and eventually that house broke up.

In 1978 I had an opportunity – which I quickly seized
– to visit China for 16 days, as part of one of the first groups allowed
in as China started to open up after Mao, the Cultural Revolution, and the
Gang of Four. I spent a month in Japan first – visiting several Zen
temples (including Eihei-ji) and spending a few days as a guest student at
one (perhaps Soji-ji). After China a friend and I continued for another 4
months – to Thailand and Burma, in both of which we visited many Buddhist
sites, then on to India, and back by way of Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga, and Hawaii.

Our time in China was totally planned, but in Beijing
I wanted to visit the Chinese Buddhist Association (which, amazingly,
still existed, and somehow I had heard about). I had brought a copy of
Suzuki-roshi’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind to give to them.

I didn’t know how to find out the association’s
address, but (amazingly again) I dialed 112 – the number in the States for
telephone information – and information answered (perhaps it was an old
telephone system purchased from the States before the Revolution?). They
didn’t speak sufficient English for me to communicate with them, but
someone at a restaurant we were at was willing to translate, and we
quickly got the address.

Margie (my traveling companion) and I told our tour
guides that we didn’t want to go shopping (which was next on our
schedule), but that instead – since they disapproved of our going off on
our own – we would return to our hotel. Once there we hired a taxi and
went to visit the Buddhist Association.

The old monks who were there were probably terrified
– why were these foreigners coming to visit them? What did they want? Of
course we could hardly communicate, but I showed them the book with the
wonderful picture of Suzuki-roshi on the back, and they graciously
accepted it.

Once back in Alaska I saw a notice in the newspaper
that a Tibetan monk living in Fairbanks wanted to meet people interested
in Buddhism in Anchorage. I responded, as did a few others (Mark and
Denise). Paljor came down and we all got together and started planning a
workshop, retreat, or something of the sort.

Eventually Paljor moved to Anchorage, he and Denise
got married, and we started a regular sitting schedule (once a week) at
their house. Gradually the group expanded.

Paljor was planning a 6-week trip to India to visit
his friends and relatives in early 1983, and I asked if I could go along
(as did Mark). Since I’d only seen the northeast portion of “mainland”
India before – basically, Calcutta and Darjeeling (because we got conned
out of our traveler’s checks early on, before we could get any further) –
I was eager to see more of India, and planned to stay in the area
(including Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh) for a year.

I did that, visiting Bodhgaya and Sarnath/Varanasi of
course, as well as Lumbini and other Buddhist sites, including in Sri
Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh (and Buddhist works in museums in Pakistan).
But first Paljor, Mark, and I went up to Dharamsala, where Paljor arranged
a private audience with the Dalai Lama. It was January and quite cold, but
of course very exciting.

After that Mark went to Nepal while Paljor and I
visited Tibetan settlements and monasteries in the south of India, inland
from Goa and near Mysore. After Paljor returned to Alaska I visited these
places again, then went to Sri Lanka when I needed to get a new visa for
India. After 3 weeks there I spent another 3 months in India, then some
time in Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. There in the Sunderbans (swamp
jungle in the Ganges delta) I met my wife, who is Swedish and was
traveling on a wildlife tour (she’d also traveled independently in India
before).

After that I spent a year (1984) in Europe – about
half with Ellinor in Sweden, or traveling with her – then finally returned
to Alaska when almost totally broke (I had started out with $20,000).
There I continued sitting weekly with Paljor and the slowly expanding
group (Khawachen Dharma Center). Ellinor came from Sweden for the summer,
then again the following summer, when we got married and moved to
Washington, DC (where I’d gotten a job with the Association to Unite the
Democracies).

In Washington there were no conveniently located
Buddhist groups, so my “regular” practice lapsed. (It had been some time
since I had practiced zazen at home. Sometimes I would sit when upset
about something in my relationship with Ellinor, which of course she
noticed. Once she asked “What have I done now?” or something like that,
which put an end to that “practice”.

So what is my practice now? This question was asked
at the first Tassajara “Alumni” Retreat (April 2012) – a good question,
since I didn’t know the answer. I said “none” – but immediately started to
qualify that as not a sufficient answer. I identify as Buddhist. I wear a
mala (which I bought in India, and have re-strung and replaced beads on
many times since). As mentioned, I’ve traveled in Japan, China, and India,
and other Buddhist countries, visiting Buddhist temples and historical
sites, thus a Buddhist pilgrimage. I even typically wear a robe – I have a
day-robe (a “house dress”) and a night-robe (for sleeping) as well as a
traveling robe (for both purposes) – originally made by my mother (copying
one made by someone at City Center), though those are wearing out and I’ve
had to start replacing them commercially.

But – since I haven’t had a regular individual
sitting practice since shortly after leaving Tassajara in 1975, and
haven’t sat with a group since we left Anchorage for Washington DC in 1986
– what effect has zazen had on my life?

Some people may find Zen practice more natural than
others. My father visited for a few days when I was spending a month at
Green Gulch in the summer of 1977. He saw lots of fruit going to waste on
the ground, picked more off the tree and canned it, carefully labeling
everything. Someone commented that he seemed like a natural Zen student.
Of course he wasn’t familiar with zazen, but commented after his first
experience of it that it was just like sitting in a hunting blind, alert,
waiting for a deer.

I have some “compulsive” tendencies which I don’t
think were stimulated by Zen practice, but in fact might be moderated by
it. I like to keep shoes orderly in our shoe rack – a tendency also of
some autistic children (see “How I Came to Practice”). I sort the
silverware in the drying rack – we don’t use a dishwasher – so it looks
nice, and it’s easier to find what one wants the next time (I see no
reason to put it back in the drawer). When I’m available – which is most
of the time – I do the laundry and carefully fold it, especially shirts:
first in thirds lengthwise, then in half and half again the other way.

Sometimes I’m aware of my breathing, and – especially
since I got used to it during and after cancer treatments in the fall of
2010 (when I had a feeding tube for many months) – I often fall asleep
lying on my back, in a sort of yoga posture. When making love with Ellinor
I’m usually aware of her breathing as well as my own. When out walking
together (in the city, not on a hiking trail) we usually walk in step.

I’ve learned, with email, if someone writes something
that upsets me (in a group – where these things tend to happen, and where
it feels more insulting), to either wait first, or write a draft response,
then sit on it for a good period of time (maybe not sending it at all, or
probably revising it substantially in any case). These things all seem
like the fruit of practice (if not practice itself).

Of course I contribute to the support of Zen Center
financially as I feel able, as well as to the group in Anchorage and
another group in the Midwest. I have visited both Zen and Tibetan groups
here in Göteborg. When Denise edited a film on Tibet and sent us a copy,
we gave it to the Tibetan group. Before we left DC we gave a wooden block
for printing prayer flags to a Tibetan group there. (We had earlier
printed prayer flags on rip-stop nylon and hung them up in Alaska.) And I
sometimes get in to sit with the group when I’m in Anchorage. Perhaps it’s
time for me to start sitting again at home?